Highlights
- Map markers are essential in Valheim to help players navigate the massive world and remember important locations such as food sources and bases.
- Crafting chimneys is important in Valheim to prevent smoke inhalation and avoid damage or death when building fires indoors.
- Utilizing chests is crucial for organizing materials and inventory management in Valheim, allowing players to store heavy items and access them easily.
Since Valheim was released in February 2021, the Viking-themed game has been incredibly well-received. It won the Best Debut award and Audience Award in 2022 at Games Developer Choice, alongside nominations for the best indie and multiplayer game of 2021. As such, it’s no surprise that the game struck a chord with fans of similar games to Valheim, including Minecraft and Rust. Over the years, the indie title from Iron Gate Studio has become home to a loyal community.
For veterans and new players alike, there’s a lot of information pertaining to the world of Valheim that can become overwhelming. Fortunately, there are a few unwritten rules that should make survivability a bit easier. Of course, there are several ways to play and various difficulty levels that encourage creative freedom. Still, players should find the following guidelines are fairly universal no matter their play style.
Always Use Map Markers
Map markers may seem trivial to some Valheim players, as using them has never been a requirement. However, the world of Valheim is massive, and expecting to remember where everything is located can make a playthrough a lot harder than necessary. Though each server’s world is procedurally generated, each map contains the same biomes which include mountains, swamps, oceans, and forests. Finding food like berries or mushrooms is important for survival, so players should always take the time to mark them on the map. Other markers exist as well that are useful for pinning bases, portals, campfires, caves, and more.
Remember to Craft Chimneys
Valheim is quite similar to a lot of titles in the same genre, but it harps on a realistic aspect of building that most games don’t. Specifically, if a player wants to create a fire inside a Valheim house, they need to remember to make a chimney. Since characters in this game are susceptible to smoke inhalation, they can actually die or take damage from building a fire in a closed space with no ventilation. Being warm is often critical in order to sleep, so most players will have to craft an indoor campfire at some point.
Utilize Chests
Crafting a chest is one of the first things that a player will do, but some players may not realize why they are so essential. There’s a multitude of reasons, but the first is that it allows players to make a system for organizing their materials. Some players go so far as to create an entire storage room in Valheim, though this isn’t mandatory. Regardless, people will begin amassing quite a bit of loot over time, and having a place to keep track of everything can be more efficient.
Additionally, not only do chests make room for more items in a player’s portable inventory, but items like stone and wood can get so heavy that carrying them slows players down. Placing heavy objects in a chest as soon as possible is a better strategy. This might even save a player’s life if they need to get away from aggressively strong creatures in Valheim like trolls or wolves.
Portals and Beds Are Necessities
Exploration in Valheim is one of the most alluring aspects of the game, but as previously stated it’s not difficult to get lost. Though the open-world game has a vastly empty map overall, occasionally players will stumble across loot that they’ll want to take back to base. Building portals can make traveling to and from desired coordinates a lot easier. However, this only works if players bring the materials to make one while on their adventure and have an unused one at home to spawn into. It should also be noted that metal cannot be taken through a portal.
Players should also bring a bed with them on their travels, because if they happen to die, they will respawn at the anchor point of where the bed is. Alternatively, they could use a portal to easily sleep in the bed at their base. Either way, it’s important to stay rested in Valheim as players will want to have the most stamina possible when traveling and battling enemies.
Reuse Abandoned Houses
After some time, players might notice that there are structures scattered around the world of Valheim in various states of disarray. This can be confusing if they haven’t built these, or there are no other players on the server. They’re actually abandoned houses or villages that players should loot when they get the opportunity. Usually, these buildings will contain helpful items like arrows and bee nests. If destroyed, Valheim‘s bee nests drop a Queen Bee which players can use to assemble their own at-home honey systems.
Abandoned houses also make ideal places to stay while exploring. Gamers will need a safe place to sleep that doesn’t leave them exposed outside, so these are great in-game Airbnbs. Additionally, if players happen across an entire village while on a server with friends, these houses can be repurposed into a Valheim home base without much effort. Parts that players don’t like can be easily deconstructed with the Hammer tool.
As players get further into the game, they may want to begin sailing around Valheim‘s ocean. In a game of this difficulty, getting into a boat can become a perilous experience. While the waters are home to fish, they also harbor random rocks, serpents, and leviathans. If the ship takes too much damage, it can sink. While some lucky players might be able to swim to safety, they might lose some of their treasures. If they make sure to carry a Hammer and Workbench they can make on-the-go repairs.
There are so many layers to the sandbox game that if someone took the time to write them all out, the list might never end. Valheim has already featured major patches since the initial release, and its map can take hours to travel across on foot. Listening to Hugin, a raven that often gives sage advice, is a player’s best bet in the end. Thankfully, Valheim is fairly forgiving in that it allows people to play however they desire, and they don’t have to grind for anything they don’t want to.
Valheim is available now for PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
